


The Late Night Shift

by SteamyLego (RoakAssault)



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Camping, Family Drama, M/M, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15655269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoakAssault/pseuds/SteamyLego
Summary: An employee at a family vacation hotspot spends his shift with a new friend who comes tumbling unexpectedly into his arms while making the rounds late one night. Will he get some? Is he even gay? These questions will be answered by the end of the night.





	The Late Night Shift

**Author's Note:**

> I reccomend listening to the Nickelback song mentioned at the beginning of the story to enhance your experience.

_“This is how you remind me of how I really am!”_

_“This is how you remind me of what I really am!”_

The camp employee just about busts a vessel in his forehead from rolling his eyes so hard as he puts his golf cart into park. Nobody even had to complain about cabin 109 blasting Nickelback at 12:39 at night for him to sniff out and shut down whatever kind of trashy party is happening in there. He seems to have a special sense for when he’s needed on “the scene”, no matter what scene that may be. The Lake Cayuga campsite, of KOA (Kampsites of America™️) had been buzzing towards the end of the night- likely the product of a surprisingly temperate evening that happened to fall on a Friday night. He’s given a wider margin than he usually would for this kind of spirited celebration, but, looking at the time, it was just about beyond reasonable to request that the terrible music be wrapped up. 

He climbs up the stairs, his knock-off Timberlands from Walmart clunking against the wood. He gives the door a good, authoritative knock just as the song reaches its chorus. A burly man with sweat shaped like a bib beneath his neck and a pink eyed, semi-angry gaze answers the door. The music is now blaring straight into the impish worker as a fog of cheap beer seeps out from the doorway.

_“It’s not like you to say sorry!”_

_“I was waiting on a different story!”_

The grounds-keeper tries to keep his voice chipper and counselor-like as he yells over the lines of angsty, middle aged heartbreak. 

“Hi there!” 

The man simply stares, his jaw slackened and his gaze dead. 

“I don’t know if you lost track of time, but it’s getting pretty late! We have a noise curfew of 10 here on the site! Could you -“

_“I’ve been wrong!”_

“Could you-“

_“I’ve been down!”_

“COULD YOU PLEASE TURN THAT OFF NOW!?”

He strains his smile, being tested by whatever power above, his deep hatred of this specific song putting him on the verge of losing his cool. The man stares off for an endless 7 seconds before returning a simple “yuh” and closing the door in the camp worker’s face. He waits there, sighing deeply in relief once the music finally dulls down and down until it is finally... off. He walks back to his cart surrounded by the sounds of crickets, frogs and, most importantly, silence. 

The cart whirs back to life and crunches over the gravel as the employee continues his rounds. He taps out the rhythms to “How You Remind Me” absentmindedly on the wheel, glancing around for signs of trouble at 5 miles per hour. He would find maybe two more crises if he was lucky, but even that was unlikely. The late shift had to be filled by some unlucky soul, but, god, was it mind numbing. So mind numbing, in fact, that it had you _wishing_ for confrontation with the whitest, trashiest, white trash in the world. 

He wasn’t quite sure what this camp ground was for or why people even came here. The “dogs allowed” policy sure attracted a lot of families, but the teenage staff member found himself wondering about the essence of said families in the quiet of so many boring nights. They always seemed, in a word, strange. Not in the way you think. Here, to explain. We’ve all been to his fair share of Quality and Comfort Inn, “includes breakfast buffet”s, right? And every time, before said breakfast buffets, you sit in your room and debate whether or not to change out of your Chiquita Banana pj pants before shoving waffles and plastic eggs down your throat. And you know what? You always decide not to. And, why? Because you know that you’ll never see any of those people again. You can imagine that someone, somewhere, bothers to remember their story. You know that the teenage daughter has a story behind the pink streak in her hair. You can assume that her mother is on a diet, based on the sparse array of fruit and Activia yogurt on her styrofoam plate, but you’ll never know for sure. They’ll always just be strange. Just like the people in the cabins. Going to the gorges, shopping in Ithaca, making memories, yet never talking to the people they sleep less than 50 feet away from in the cabin next door; and never, ever talking to the plain, gawky worker who stars in his this story. Oh, god. He’s spent way too much time alone here, hasn’t he?

Back to “he” himself. The golf cart conductor let the smells of a humid night and chlorine fly by and into his nose. Little signs that living had occurred but was not currently happening were everywhere- clothes out on the porch railings to dry, embers in matching fireplaces- just the usual. The Nickelback house party had stuck out to his ears because the rest of the grounds were quiet, almost serene. He tries to keep his eyes sharp, but they inevitably drift and space when they see nothing. 

Slowing down at a crosswalk to let a lone woman across, the less-than-alert worker notices some moving silhouettes against the yellow light of a cabin up ahead and to the left. The shadows angrily gesture, and he can even pick up on some yelling, muted through the cabin walls and by distance. The woman in front of him, failing to meet his gaze, finally makes it to the other side of the street. He smells the trail of cigarette smoke she leaves behind as he creeps under the dim street light toward the cabin of interest. God, he wishes he could smoke on the job. 

He slows to a stop just in front of the cabin. The yelling has become more apparent at this distance and makes the size of the small cabin seem comically tinier. He waits in the dark, this side of the street unbothered by any street lamps, watching the apparent argument escalate. A deep but menacing voice talks endlessly, sometimes being interrupted by moments of a higher pitched speaker. He can’t help but gasp as he hears the unfittingly, but comparatively, soft sound of someone being struck to the ground. He stares a few moments longer, watching a rather small figure getting tossed around the small hut, before reaching for his Walkie Talkie, intending to call Camp Security. Just as he hits the call button, he sees the outline of a body being tossed from the porch, toppling down the stairs, and landing into the dirt as the door slams behind it. It lies as still as the voyeur from the vehicle watches. Silence crashes like a wave around him. He debates whether he should call anyway, get up to help, or confront someone in the time it takes for the body to slowly push itself off the ground and dust off its clothes, muttering to itself in the process. 

It’s a boy, a few inches shorter than the camp employee. His skin refuses to blend in with the black background like his hair does. It’s hard to tell how old he is. When they somehow make eye contact, just four sunken black dots recognizing each other in the near dark, neither of them really knows what to do. The employee suddenly becomes conscious of his glowing yellow polo which he wears as a uniform. Before he realizes it, the boy is quickly approaching the golf cart, his lanky gait growing apparent. He smells of nervous sweat, his wide eyes dark and lined in their roundness.

“Uh...” his eyes shift quickly from side to side, “do you have somewhere... where, um...” he bounces on his feet.  
“Do you have somewhere I could stay for the night?” 

The worker just stares, half wracking his brains for an answer, half trying to come up with which of the obvious questions he wants to ask. “Uh....” is all that came out. 

“I was gonna just hang out in the dog park, but, since you’re here,” the boy half mutters. The worker hears him shuffle, recognizing the familiar noises of a cigarette being removed from its carton. “Hop in,” he finally says with finality. The boy doesn’t seem to hesitate at all before crossing the front of cart and plopping down beside the worker, who glances out of the corner of his eye at the boy as he slowly puts the cart back into drive. The new passenger just hunches over as he lights his cigarette, smoke slowly coiling out from his small, collapsed figure. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, things feeling a lot more calm and normal than they probably should. Finally the boy breaks the silence with a simple question, one that the worker has never heard from someone staying at the camp ground.  
“You got a name?”

“Gerard,” the worker answers, reaching up subconsciously to touch his name tag. He’s surprised within his surprise to hear the boy lightly laughing. He feels a bit offended. “Is that funny?”

“Mmm,” the boy responds, “I’ve just only ever heard that name in church. Like, ‘we will now pray for Gerard’s sister, Cynthia, who is in the hospital with a broken ankle. We’re not really sure why she needs prayer, but nobody else will come up with anything better’. The name is from the Bible, right?” 

“Mm, I don’t really know. But I know what you mean.” He lets a smile spread across his face. “How about you?” 

“Frrank,” he answers, lingering on the ‘r’. 

“I don’t think that’s from the Bible.” 

“No. It’s like... from Germany. I think.” He takes a long drag. Gerard thinks that too. 

“Where are we headed, Gerard?” 

“Ahh, you know. Just making the rounds.” 

“Where do you stay during the nights? You have the late shift, right?”

“Yup. I have like a cabin office. Like a cabin but with a ... computer. And pamphlets.”

Frank smiles, still watching the road get sucked under the front of the car. “Pamphlets?”

“Yeah, y’know, like, if someone is like ‘what’s there to do around here?’ I go ‘here’s a pamphlet.’”

“How old are you?” Frank asks, out of the blue. 

“Eighteen.” Gerard answers. “Uh... why?”

Frank takes another long drag before responding. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. I can bet you a million dollars you can’t guess my age right.”

“I bet you a million dollars you don’t have a million dollars.”

“Hey!” Frank yells, amusedly looking at Gerard. “Guess.”

“Mmmm,” Gerard thinks. “Sixteen?”

“Great. Now I have two million dollars. Thank you.” 

“Seriously? How far off was I?”

“Mmmmm... Five years.”

Gerard chokes. “What?” 

“Mmmhm.” 

“You’re five five!”

“And an alcoholic. Because I can be. Speaking of which...” Frank pulls a flask out from his black sweatshirt, taking a swig of whatever lies inside, holding the burning cigarette between his fingers. “Ahhh. It burns so good.”

“I wouldn’t know.” 

“Really?” Again, Frank turns to Gerard. “Have some.”

“I’m literally driving.”

“Yeah, at 5 miles per hour. Just take a sip.”

“I can’t even smoke on the job, ok? I am a family friendly family man.”

“Lame.”

“I get a golf cart!”

“Lammeee!” 

Suddenly they both look at each other playfully, smiling, Gerard stopping at a red sign. He sees Frank’s face in the light for the first time (both of them apparently have problems with eye contact.) His smile falls off his face as he notices how dirty Frank’s is from the fall, blood creeping out from a cut in his lip and trickling out from his nose. Frank notices his change in expression and quickly hides his face once again. Gerard immediately looks for ways to play it off. 

“Um...,” he says, still braked at the stop sign, “Here.” 

He pulls over a short way to the cabin office where there was, indeed, a computer. Frank follows behind, scrubbing blindly at his face, now self conscious of how it must look. They clunk up the stairs together in a parallel two-man line, Gerard sliding the glass door closed and locking it. Frank plops himself down on the pleather sofa, smirking at Gerard’s mannerisms. 

“Paranoid?”

Gerard just shakes his head. “I’ve worked this shift too many times to count for three summers in a row. I’ve seen some shit. And I’ve learned some shit, one of those shits being that you should lock the fucking door at night.” 

“Oh, god. Please tell me about the encounters that made you learn these shits. They must be entertaining.”

Gerard reaches into the middle cabinet above the microwave for the first aid kit, shaking his head. “God, where do I begin?”

Frank smiles with his head propped up on his hand, elbow positioned on the left most couch arm, as Gerard sits next to him, opening the kit into his lap.  
“This one time at, like, 3 am, this woman comes up and knocks on the glass. I’m not really required to help anyone past 12, but I was like, whatever.” He pulls out a small cloth and a bottle labeled “H2O2”. 

“So, she has a dog with her. An absolute rodent. Like, Beverly Hills Chihuahua might try to convince me that those rat dogs are cute, but I know better.” He upturns the bottle, the cloth pressed to its mouth. 

“Come to think of it, this one had a little pink vest on, too. Maybe she saw the movie. Anyway.” He moves to Frank’s face. He got so caught up in his story that he never even asked if he could touch his fucking face. “Erm, is it ok if I-“

Frank cuts him off with a look that said ‘Are you serious? Don’t you think I would’ve said something? Do you think I’m that incapable of inferring what’s going on? And that I wouldn’t speak up if I had a problem? Just keep going with your dumb story.’ 

Gerard huffs And begins dabbing first at Frank’s nose. Frank pulls his lips in together to stretch the skin out and make it easier for him. 

“So this lady, she asks me, ‘Is the dog sitting service still available?’ And, I tell you, what pissed me off about this... mind you, I was tired and probably cranky... but, she said it like her asking was a courtesy. Like, if the answer was no, just because I worked there, she expected me to leap up like, ‘No, ma’am, but I believe I can handle the job!’ Man, people drive me crazy.” 

He puts the dirty cloth down at his side and readies another, this time going for the cut on Frank’s lip. Right as he focuses in, ready to strike, he lip moves. “I’m not sure that warrants a locked door...”

Gerard looks up at Frank’s full expression to see him smirking. Holding the cloth in the air between his fingers, he mock-impatiently clicks his tongue and responds. “Maybe I didn’t make it clear how much I hate that type of dog... excuse me, RAT.” Frank laughs as Gerard attempts to carry on with his deadpan facade, failing only partly. 

“Another time,” Gerard starts, going at Frank’s lip now, “this guy who was pissed about someone moving into the cabin next to his came over here and threw a bottle of pee at the door. And, I mean, it was locked, but that didn’t stop it from going everywhere. And who do you think had to clean that shit up?” 

Frank grimaces, trying not to move his lip. “Shtill,” Frank starts, keeping his mouth motionless, “doeshn’t wa-ant yocked doo-s. Ya pa-nad.” 

Gerard rolls his eyes. “Well, this other time, this raging alcoholic of a midget came bustin’ at the doors and the windows, screamin’ about a place to sleep.”

“Hey!” Frank says, fake defensively as Gerard pulls away the cloth from his lip. He puts the supplies away and walks to the sink, wetting a wash cloth and wringing it out. He shrugs, smiling lightly, and sits back down to tend to Frank. He starts wiping lightly at the dirt near his temple. Gerard begins, “So-“

“Ughnnnnnnn.”

“What?”

“No!”

“What!”

“I can tell. Ok? Don’t you think I’m used to answering it by now? I know when someone is gonna ask.”

Gerard blushes and avoids eye contact. “Sorry.” 

“I don’t mind answering,” Frank continues, in a low voice, “it’s just.” He takes a deep breath. “It gets old. It’s not anything special.”

Gerard shrugs again, clearing the dirt from his cheek now. He doesn’t want to interrupt. It’s quiet for a few moments. 

“It happens all the time. A forced family vacation, an inevitable argument, we all get pissed at each other, and repeat. He doesn’t always get physical, but, I just got lucky today I guess.” 

Gerard clicks his tongue. “My dad used to be like that. Before he left. Do you usually jump in to save someone else the beating?”

“Mmhm. Just my mom. I’m an only child. They’ll call and text a bunch in the morning, acting all sorry and concerned. I honestly don’t see the point of this dumb game.”

Gerard lowers the rag, looking up at Frank to see if he missed any spots. “Yeah. Don’t I know it. Why do you still go on these dumb trips if you’re all grown?”

“Mmmm...,” Frank reaches into his sweatshirt for the flask. After shaking it and hearing the light sound of swishing, he unscrews the cap. He empties it in one movement, licking the edges of the spout. He sighs as he places the metal canister back into hiding. “I lied,” he states simply. 

Gerard scrunches his eyebrows. “You lied?” 

Frank smirks. “You were only one year off.”

Gerard tracks his memory, feeling like Uma Thurman moments before the Kill Bill sirens go off. “You’re 17?” 

“And strung out on confusion, yup.” 

Gerard huffs. “Don’t distract me with Green Day references! You’re a liar!” 

“I guess I just owe you a truth, then. I apologize.”

“You know I have to report underage drinking on the premises.”

“It wasn’t underage when it was happening. Just take your truth, please. We both know you’re not gonna do it.”

“We do?” 

“I do. You’re missing your chance.”

“Hey. Truths don’t expire.”

“I decided they do. 5, 4...”

“Wait! I don’t have anythi-“

“...3, 2”

“Uhhh, What was the argument about?” Gerard waits, regretting for a moment what he just blurted out.

“Mm. There you go,” Frank says, correcting his doubts. “I got a tattoo. Dad saw it when I was swimming.”

“Ooh. First of all, how did you get that at your age.”

“‘My age’? I’m only a year younger, ok.”

“But that year makes all the difference.”

“Ughf. My friend hooked me up. Is there a second of all?”

“You bet. What and where is it?”

Frank takes a moment to dissect that sentence. “An octopus. On my outer thigh.”

“An octopus? Why?”

“I was cross faded. You’d be better off asking my outer thigh itself.”

Gerard laughs at this. Frank laughs too, starting to see how ridiculous all of this sounds. 

“Did it hurt?”

“Again, ask my outer thigh.” 

“Hm.” Gerard is quiet for a minute. “Can I-“

“I knew you were gonna ask that!”

“What!”

“I just knew it, that’s all.”

“Well, excuse me for not realizing I was dealing with a psychic.”

“Yeah. You can see it. Here.”

Gerard breath catches in his chest a bit as Frank pulls down his black faded jeans. Frank notices and rolls his eyes. “Calm down. You’re not gonna see anything.” Gerard thinks about how that could be taken in a couple of different ways. 

Frank pulls the jeans down to about knee length and then pulls his boxers up from the bottom to reveal an octopus with a head the size of a tennis ball with tentacles, flailing off artistically in every direction. 

“The line work is great...” Gerard muses, his fingers touching the image instinctively. He can tell from the state of the ink that it’s not new. “It’s nice.”

“Gracias.”

“I like how it follows the curve of your leg.” 

“Hm. I hadn’t noticed that,” Frank says, pulling his pants back up slowly. Gerard watches the octopus disappear from his gaze. 

Gerard hears his watch alarm go off. “It’s 2:15- time to fold the beach towels by the pool.” Gerard puts the first aid kit and rag back where they belong. 

“Do you do this every night?” Frank asks, mocking exhaustion as he gets to his feet. 

“Usually just Friday and the weekends. Sometimes more. Though it sure fucks my sleep schedule for the entire week.”

“Ugh, I can imagine,” Frank says, following Gerard out the door, back to the golf cart.

They cruise their way to the pool, Gerard scolding Frank for his drinking habit and Frank mocking everything he has to say. Gerard can’t help but notice how different it is with two pairs of shoes clunking up the pool’s wooden stairs instead of just his own. He flicks on the strikingly dim light in the bathhouse and closes the door behind the both of them. “I always thought the lighting makes this place look like an abandoned weed farm in someone’s basement.”

“That’s so true!” 

Gerard smiles to himself as he empties the drier in the far corner. He’s never been able to speak that thought aloud to anyone before. It feels weird. But good. He puts the basket between Frank and himself as they sit on a couple stray pool floaties. 

“So, are you the only one around at this time?” Frank asks, settling into his half- inflated donut. 

“Other than the security asleep at the front gate, yeah,” Gerard responds, picking a towel from the shapeless pile. 

“Jeez. That must get... spooky.”

“Spooky?” Gerard shifts, making the floaty swan beneath him squeak in protest. 

“Yeah. There has to be a couple ghost stories. Urban legends. About this camp.” They begin to accumulate a pile of folded towels on top of the rack that held the pool noodles. 

“Ah, I don’t know. I know someone died the year before I started working here. Nobody talks about it much though. Bringing light to it is bad for business.” 

“And you’ve never asked about it?” Frank asks, smirking quizzically. 

“Mm, no. I wouldn’t want to seem creepy. Like, ‘do you know more about that kid that died here a few summers ago?’”

“Woah!! A kid? How old?”

“Mm, I really don’t know. I’ve always pictured like a ten year old. But. I’ve never seen any ten year old ghosts, so. I have no evidence to support my thesis.”

“Do you know how it happened?”

“Nope. I really know nothing.” 

“Hm,” Frank grumbles, seeming disappointed. They’ve reached the bottom of the basket, the beach towels now reaching a respectable height on hop of the rack where they sat. Gerard starts putting the piles back in the basket, still in stacks, rising to his feet. Frank joins him. They walk back out onto the pool deck, Gerard heading towards the chest labeled “clean towels”. 

As they restock the cabinet, Gerard speaks again. “It gets lonely, actually.”

Frank doesn’t respond right away. “Hm?”

“It gets lonely. Hanging out with you is way more exciting than it should be. I see, like, ten people on average each shift. The rest of the time, I’m alone.”

“Well,” Frank starts, closing the chest lid, “I’m glad you came by when you did, too. I would have had a rough night if I spent it alone in the dog park.” Gerard watches him as he plops down on a deck chair nearby. Gerard joins him. 

They both stare out at the gentle non-existent waves of the pool, underlit by a light that looks green by the time it cuts through all the layers of water. 

“What is H2O2?” 

“Hydrogen peroxide.”

“Oh.” 

The simple sounds of crickets, frogs and silence whisper out across the night. Gerard looks over to see Frank suddenly removing his black converse. 

“What are you doing?”

“I wanna put my feet in,” Frank replies, smiling sweetly, pulling off a striped sock. He walks over to the pool’s edge and rolls his pants up at the legs before sitting down near the diving board, dipping his feet in. Gerard takes a position next to him, crossing his legs. 

“I feel like I know you.” 

“Well, I mean... you kind of do. Take your shoes off, come on! Dip them piggies in.”

Gerard begins to untie his shoes. “No, I mean, like... I feel like I’m talking to an old friend.” 

“Well, just because you don’t know me doesn’t mean I don’t know you.” 

Gerard looks to his face. “What?”

“I’ve been watching you. For years!” Frank throws his hands up dramatically. 

Gerard mocks fatal surprise, like the moment before a wealthy woman realizes she’s about to be killed by her cheating husband in a noir film. “Years, you say?” 

“Yes! Gathering precious data!” Frank kicks his foot, causing drops to cascade further into the pool. 

“What have you determined?”

“One- you’re careful, too careful. But not careful enough for me. Two- you’re up to no good. No good at all. And so that means, I have to utilize ‘three’.”

“Three?” Gerard asks, trying not to crack a grin. 

“That you’re a ticklish son of a bitch!” Frank attacks Gerard’s torso. Gerard, genuinely surprised, let’s out as he falls back onto the concrete, gasping. Dammit, he is ticklish. How did Frank know. 

He flails his limbs helplessly like a beached cockroach, Frank climbing on top of Gerard for better leverage. He laughs evilly as Gerard yells helplessly for him to stop. In a fateful, swift moment, Gerard’s foot lands perfectly against Frank’s chest. He kicks forward without thinking. With a yell, Frank is launched into the pool. 

Gerard takes a moment to gather himself, watching Frank splash around, his head spinning with rules he’s been warned about. He weighs “don’t go into the pool after 11 pm” against “never leave someone in the pool without a lifeguard on duty”. He doesn’t make a decision before whipping his shirt and pants off, diving into the water in just his boxers. 

He grabs at Frank, frantically treading water, searching for a limb to get a grip on. Frank’s body goes limp as it begins to rapidly sink to the bottom of the pool. Gerard actually screams as he watches in panic. He holds his nose as he torpedos himself toward the bottom. He tries to hold his eyes open to see where Frank has gone. The water stings and the lights in the pool don’t penetrate the deep end very well, but he manages to grab a hold of Frank’s arm and pull him along the pool’s floor toward the shallow end. 

Panting hard, dragging the body behind him, and searching his memory for CPR tips, it takes him a few moments to hear Frank yelling. “Hey! Hey!” He whips his head around and sees Frank, not only breathing, but smiling mischievously and walking along the pool floor, his clothing soaked to his skin. 

“You fucking idiot!” Gerard screams, pushing a laughing Frank off his feet and into the 2 feet of water. Frank just gets back up, still laughing, and grabs at Gerard’s hands. 

“Were you scared? Were you gonna give me mouth to mouth?” 

Gerard shakes him off loosely. “It’d be your own fucking funeral, ok? I’m not a certified lifeguard.” Frank is still laughing like a little shit. 

“You could’ve fooled me,” Frank says in between gasps. 

“Yeah? Well I’m not a liar. Like you.” Gerard stops shaking Frank off and just lets him have his hand. He mopes, gazing downward at the water “God, how’d you even do that? You must have held your breath for like four minutes.”

“Not hard to hold your breath when you’re dead inside.” Gerard just shakes his head. “But you’re right,” Frank steps closer, “I am a liar.” Gerard is still angrily glaring down at the shallow water. He wipes some strands of hair from his face. Frank takes over for him. “My dad wasn’t actually mad about the tattoo”. 

Gerard looks up at him through angry and tired eyes. “Oh yeah? Big surprise.”

His long black hair weighs heavy, holding water, while Frank’s shorter hair stays all spiked up after he runs a hand through it. “We were arguing because of something else. An age old father/son disagreement.” 

“Did it have to do with your cigarette problem?”

“Nope.”

“Your alcohol problem?”

“Nope- my boy problem.”

Gerard looks up in a moment of confusion that ends when he looks into Frank’s eyes. His blood runs cold as Frank uses the hand placed on Gerard’s cheek to bring their faces together into a kiss. Gerard realizes how cold his lips are as Frank bites and licks them and he soon feels himself kissing back. ‘Huh’, he thinks to himself, ‘this has escalated quite a bit.’

His eyes never falter from their shocked appearance, wide and frightened, almost, as Frank’s lips continued to envelop his own, squeezing and relenting endlessly. He stays still for what feels like decades of seconds, not realizing it’s over for a wide margin after it ends. He meets Frank’s smiling eyes once again. 

“Holy shit,” is all Gerard can say. “Holy shit.” He backs up slowly out of the pool, Frank following close by. He nearly slips on each stair, watching Frank carefully as his feet find their way behind him. He finally falls on his butt on the final stair. “I’ve never even told anyone I’m .... gay.”

Frank walked past him to the chest of towels that they’d just folded. “Now you have,” he sang. You know, like a little shit. 

“How did you know?” 

“Eh. Takes one to know one.” Frank begins to peel off his wet clothes. Gerard watches him get down to his boxers then lay out two of the towels, taking a spot on one of them. Gerard finally lifts himself out of the water, making sure he keeps his boxers. He lays down beside Frank. 

“I can’t believe it.”

“What?”

“Usually one has the right to see things like this coming.”

“Mm. Usually.” 

“...”

“What?”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Ugh, just let me moon bathe in silence.”

Gerard lays down for a while, feeling as though he’s alone, but somehow more complete. He knows if he turned he’d see Frank, acquiring a vampire tan, but he can’t pull his eyes away from the stars. He can’t stop licking his lips, hoping to taste something other than the chlorine so that he might be able to remember this night in some way that’s more tangible than the others, but he can’t. It feels as though every moment that happens tonight only exists for that moment. He can’t think of one solid piece of proof that any of this happened that he could tell someone by word of mouth and be sure that they’d believe him. Yet, somehow, it felt more real than any night shift he’d ever worked before. 

“Wanna watch the sun rise from somewhere cool?” Gerard suddenly hears himself say. Frank just nods. Somehow, Frank’s clothes are already dry as he puts them back on. Gerard accuses him of being a wizard but Frank just brushes it off. Gerard holds on to his suspicions. 

“Did you have any more chores?” Frank asks as they pull over by the camp ground’s non-religion specific prayer house (it’s a church). 

“Uh, not really. I usually just do towels and other stuff because I’m bored. My job is just to be the one to wait around. Someone has to.”

“I’m glad it was you.” Frank winks. 

“Mm. Don’t make me regret picking up this shift.” Gerard pulls open the permanently unlocked doors of the prayer house and immediately leads Frank to the staircase on the right. They reach the roof just as the sky is turning a light purple. 

They watch the sky in near silence, only interrupted by meaningless comments by either boy about things rising to visibility around the camp ground. 

“So. What are you gonna do?” Gerard states forward, partially asking himself the question. 

“I knew you’d ask that.”

“Of course you did.”

“Mm. I have to think of answer. Let me ask you something instead.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

“How are you gonna hold on?”

Gerard scoffs. “That’s like the same thing I asked you.”

“Fine. What are you gonna do, then?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can tell your soul is lost. You spend your time feeling empty. You sleep during the day. Wander at night. Nobody truly knows you. Is that worth changing?”

Gerard gulps. “How do you know all that?”

“How about you answer my question first? Quick, before the sun comes all the way up. Pressure is on!”

Gerard thinks for a second. “Nobody wants to know me.”

“I would have.”

“Don’t you know me now?”

“Dude, I don’t count. By tomorrow, I’ll be gone.”

Gerard looks at his feet dangling down the roof sadly. “I really wish that wasn’t true.” 

“It won’t be. For the next boy.”

“Fine, fine. Life lesson learnt. Now you. I did ask first, after all.”

“Refresh my memory?”

“Don’t be cheeky. What are you gonna do?”

Gerard hears Frank’s voice directed at him this time. “It’s too late for me.” 

Gerard looks up to disagree with Frank, but can swear that in the light, his skin is somehow more... translucent than it was before. He finds his tongue. “You know that’s not true. You have to fight back. You know, before it actually is too late. Run away if you have to.”

Frank chuckles. “I could have stood to hear that. Mm. Maybe I should let you in on another little secret.” He grabs Gerard’s face, placing his forehead against his own. “I lied. Again.”  
He licks his lips, which the sun hit in just the way that made them seem like they weren’t there. “I’m not dead on the inside. In fact, that’s the only place I’m still alive.” 

Gerard scrunches his eyebrows in confusion again. “I don’t....” he looks back to Frank’s smiling eyes, lighter than they’d been before. 

“Though. I did tell the truth. Once. I have watched you.” His kiss was quick, shorter than the night had felt. His words felt like butterfly wings, spoken with breath that wasn’t there. 

“It’s not too late for you.”

Gerard awakes suddenly, sprawled out on the sofa in his work cabin. He reaches up and squeezes his lips a few times. 

It’s not like he could say the dream felt too real. It felt like a dream. But it was the kind that lingers with you the whole day, the kind that you don’t have to scour your memory in order to remember if you want to remember it. The kind that makes you gaze off when you’re in a coffee shop and the WiFi stops working. Mm. Either way, he picks up his phone and calls his mom as soon as his mind is all caught up with his body. 

“Hey, Mikey. Wanna pick me up from work today? No, no. Nothings wrong. I just feel like... seeing you.” His eyes linger on the dirty rag by the sink for a little bit too long. He walks out the door, holding the phone to his ear and pushing down the creases on his yellow polo. 

If he had only seen the plaque that read: 

“THIS CABIN IS BUILT IN DEDICATION OF FRANK IERO” 

He passed it every day but never bothered to get to know it. Maybe he would have some more resolution if he did. On the other hand, maybe he would have less.


End file.
